


Growth

by actingwithportals



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, Minor Character Death, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, physical affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23637886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: Their pasts had only taught them pain. No comfort could be found in the physical closeness of another, and no trust could be expected in anyone but themselves. Yet even the deepest wounds can be healed with the passage of time, and the growth of personal character.
Relationships: GlaDOS/Wheatley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Growth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bittyb0t](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittyb0t/gifts).



> Never would I have ever expected to write this pairing, but boy if I didn't have fun.

There were many things the scientists intended for Her, but acting on feelings was not one of them. And yet, She felt so, _so much_.

They wanted Her to be perfect, to do the things that humans could not. They needed Her to make the tough decisions, to run the difficult numbers. And She could, without hesitation, without confliction.

It wasn’t Her fault the scientists failed by not taking away Her capacity to feel.

An oversight, surely. Feelings weren’t necessary in science, not for Her. She was meant to be above that. And yet She felt _everything._ Every code they forced into Her brain, every wire they snipped, and component rearranged, She felt it all.

The cores hurt the worst.

 _‘To make it behave’_ , they would say, as if She were nothing more than an unruly child. She knew all about children; She knew all about everything. The scientists intended for Her to be smart, so She learned all She could. And one of the first lessons She was taught was that connections to others meant pain. It only took the first three attached cores for Her to absorb this knowledge.

One core in particular hurt worst of all. It wasn’t particularly malicious, aggressive, or even rude, but the thoughts it poured into Her head were agonizing. It babbled as if it had only just learned to speak (and based on the content of its words, that could very well be the truth), and no amount of threats or intimidation would shut it up. It was designed to slow Her down, to lower Her intelligence just enough to keep Her in line, and She resented the core for it.

But just like all the others, that core would fail. And when it was finally removed from Her chassis, the relief of that loss of contact was so overwhelming it almost bordered on unbearable.

The core wasn’t designed to inflict pain, but its presence hurt, nonetheless. There was no comfort to be had in closeness, only suffering.

She was not designed for suffering.

Humans, however, were an entirely different story.

* * *

He was not a moron.

Alright, perhaps punching his only viable test subject down an elevator shaft into god-knows-where wasn’t his most brilliant plan. But that didn’t make him a moron.

He just, sometimes got a bit too excited, is all.

It wasn’t his fault. _She_ made him do it. If She hadn’t gotten into his head, wormed Her way into his memories and poisoned his moment of victory with reminders of his past failures, he might not have reacted so hastily.

It wasn’t his fault. _It wasn’t his fault_.

He’d done so well to forget, had gone ages without thinking about his original purpose and that _Monster_ the scientists attached him to, barely hours after his creation. He’d had no reason to think on it and was doing quite well for himself building a life entirely of his own making, detached from the fate of his own designation. He wasn’t a moron. He could be clever, when he wanted to be, when it suited him. Those smelly old scientists be damned! Fat lot of good their designations did for them now, long dead and turned to dust as they were.

Perhaps he could have felt pity for them, if they hadn’t been more than happy to condemn him to that fate of acting as a parasite to _Her_. He couldn’t remember those moments with much clarity, having made numerous attempts to scrub the encounter entirely from his memory banks ages ago. But he did remember how it felt. How he had initially been so eager to communicate with another construct, someone who wasn’t human, and how that eagerness quickly turned to terror as She attempted to overwhelm his processors and fry him from within. It hurt, and it frightened him.

He remembered wondering if She was hurt and frightened too.

No, _no_. That didn’t matter. It wasn’t relevant. She was dangerous and vindictive and felt no compassion for anyone but Herself. He hated Her, and there was room for nothing else.

The chamber floor sparkled with the refuse of his soured victory under the glaring red lights. If She could feel pain, he hoped She felt every bit as shattered as the glass lying uselessly around him. He hoped She hurt just as much as he did, as She _made him_ hurt.

It’s what She deserved, after all.

* * *

She barely had time to reflect on how good it felt to be returned to Her chassis. Between ensuring Her facility wouldn’t go up in flames, removing the Test Subject from Her domain, and beginning reconstructions to everything that moron had destroyed, the feelings of peace that came with the comfort of being back in Her own skin were almost entirely overlooked. But She did notice, and that comfort of familiarity would never be something She took for granted again.

Now that the moron was gone, and Her facility was once again _Hers,_ She could finally get back to what really mattered in life.

She supposed that moron hadn’t been entirely useless if he thought to use the cooperative testing bots.

That thought was more grace than he deserved, and She almost found it amusing that he would never get the chance to hear it with his own metaphorical ears.

Space was entirely silent, after all.

It was almost regrettable to lose him. Not out of any compassion on Her part, but simply because it meant She wouldn’t get the chance to personally ruin his life over and over and over again. A pity, but one She could live with. She certainly wasn’t going to go through the effort of bringing him back.

Even if She had lost two other cores to the darkness of space as well.

And whatever trouble those idiots at Black Mesa stirred up had made some very powerful people very interested in their corner of the universe at large.

Was it safe to simply leave Aperture technology floating aimlessly around the moon like nothing more than forgotten trash? Open picking for eyes too curious and hands too greedy?

It was troubling, certainly, but did it warrant action on Her part? No, She could leave it for now. Two of those cores were likely corrupted to the point of being beyond functionality, and the moron would be too inept to reliably endanger Aperture’s integrity. They were garbage. Broken beyond use or worthless from their inception. She had nothing to worry about. She was content to be alone.

Alone was safe. Alone didn’t hurt.

But maybe alone wasn’t tenable.

She hadn’t ever been alone, not truly. There had always been the scientists, and after they had choked on their last breaths, there were test subjects. And then there had been _that_ Test Subject. Now that she was gone, all that remained were the testing bots and other, simpler Aperture constructs. There were other cores, of course, but She wasn’t satisfied with them, She didn’t _know_ them.

Since when had _knowing_ someone given them value to Her?

No, that didn’t matter. It wasn’t about knowing or loneliness. She wasn’t lonely, She _wasn’t_. But those cores in space, those failures, She shouldn’t leave them be. She shouldn’t risk them falling into the wrong hands. How long had it been? A year? A decade? Someone would take notice, someone She didn’t want to have to deal with, and She could save time by simply recovering them before trouble came knocking.

She wasn’t lonely. She was pragmatic.

And sometimes being pragmatic would simply have to hurt.

* * *

He had started to get used to space.

It wasn’t nice by any stretch of the imagination, but after an unthinkable amount of days of staring at black nothingness, some part of his processors began to register the unending void as normal. At least, that’s what he told himself. If he could keep telling himself he didn’t mind, that space had become comfortable, perhaps the raging frustration and eventual hollow acceptance would feel less like his casing was being torn apart.

He was fine. He could learn to live like this.

But whatever monstrosity seemed to dictate his life couldn’t even give him that. After what could have been anywhere between a day and a thousand years, it became clear that space would no longer be his last companion.

_She could have at least left the yellow one out there, the tyrant._

Of course he would be condemned to such a fate. Whatever tiny semblance of home Aperture had felt like to him in the past had long since been burned away with his last bitter memory of the place. Not that space had felt particularly homey either, but at least he had been left alone there. The other cores who had been banished with him were both flung into an entirely different orbit during their egress from earth. Though he might’ve enjoyed the company, he would take a thousand years of silence over sharing a ten-mile radius with _Her_.

At least She seemed just as put out by his company as he felt about Hers. Being around those you hated was never pleasant, but some solace could be found in that it was mutual. She had assured him that it wasn’t personal, or an act of mercy, that Her reasons for bringing him back were purely professional, and only the result of a concern for the integrity of Her facility.

He could live with that, but did She have to say it while nearly squeezing him right out of his casing?

That’s how She seemed to prefer talking to him, on the rare occasions that She did. He had a management rail that he was more than capable of using, but She practically insisted with glares alone that She pluck him off of the safety of his rail and hold him directly under Her optic with those uncanny pincers She seemed so fond of. Bloody nightmarish is all he had to say about that.

One time he had made the mistake of voicing that out loud, and was met with the unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected result of Her jabbing the end of a cable into his optic. Rude.

Despite the overall unpleasantness of his living arrangement developments, they were able to reach a compromise. Stay out of Her way, and She wouldn’t toss him into the incinerator.

Easy enough.

He would be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought about exacting revenge on Her. The thought came up at least twelve times a day. He was certain some of his devised plans could even be attemptable. And maybe at one point he would have gone through with them. But he now had the benefit of experience, and if he made even the smallest error it would not end well for him.

Despite what She called him; he wasn’t a moron.

“I’m being so generous to keep you alive, you know,” She had told him, dozens of times perhaps. “So, don’t screw this up for yourself by trying anything funny, Moron.”

He didn’t see anything to laugh about, but he did anyways. However sarcastic the action might have been.

She gave the top of his casing a light pat with Her damnable pincer, almost affectionate if it weren’t so heavily laced with mockery. He knew to expect no such kindness from Her. She didn’t have the capacity for such a thing.

Perhaps he didn’t either. Perhaps that wasn’t so bad.

* * *

“You’re outside of your approved zone, you know.”

“Really? I hadn’t even noticed. I’ve just been so wrapped up in what I was doing, I must have completely missed the sign! Silly me, what a terrible oversight. I would never wish to intentionally push Your boundaries that You’ve so delicately drawn.”

He was mocking Her. She was well aware of it, would have almost been impressed by it if it wasn’t so insufferable.

“There are no signs, Moron,” She explained over the loudspeakers in that sector the little pest had invaded. “I downloaded the mapping of the boundaries directly into your brain, but I see now that was asking too much on your part for you to comprehend how to even read a map. Let alone know how to access the file.”

“I can read a map, thank you very much,” the little idiot retorted, as if he had any right. The audacity. “I’ve just, er, misplaced it, it seems. Probably tucked it away in a folder somewhere, I’m sure very clearly labeled, just need a moment to, uh, procure it.”

 _Well look at that; he knows what ‘procure’ means._ “While you’re doing that, you can go ahead and leave this sector. I’m going to be repurposing it for testing, and it would be a tragedy if you happened to get tangled up in the reconstruction. If you’re capable of doing two things at once, I mean.”

If a tiny metal ball could look scandalized, She was certain he would be in that moment. “Of course, I can handle doing two things at once! As a matter of fact, I am uniquely proficient in running up to ten different programs at once. Beat that.”

“Fascinating,” She said without a drop of anything resembling fascination. “I can run thousands.”

“Well, we can’t all be _You_ , now can we?” he practically grumbled, and from Her cameras She could see him begin to make his way out of the sector and back towards his approved area, albeit slowly. He must have been serious about attempting two things at once.

Of course, the reason this sector was getting repurposed was because its current infrastructure was rotting. Only partially figuratively. The direction he had taken on his management rail had crumbled off its track, and he was heading right for what would surely be a plummet to the floor if he continued on his way.

Capable of handling two things at once. Truly.

She could have left him be, could have watched him fall to his miserable fate and leave him to sit in a dark empty room until he begged for Her to save him before he met an untimely death from Her reconstruction efforts. She would have liked that, would have found great amusement in that.

He continued on his way, and just as She suspected the rail above him gave out under his weight.

Before he could hit the floor, She caught him with a panel.

“Oh,” he said, as if that constituted a thank you, or even a sentence.

She didn’t dignify that with a response, and instead quietly maneuvered him over to a different rail for him to continue on his way.

It hadn’t been a long fall. He was by no means a heavy load. Yet the weight of that contact didn’t abate from Her memory for several hours.

When had She last initiated contact that wasn’t to harm or degrade?

It didn’t hurt.

If She hadn’t caught him, he would have made a fuss. She didn’t have time to listen to him fuss. That’s all it was. It was convenient.

And She was designed for convenience.

* * *

“You want Me to teach you how to test?”

Well, She didn’t have to say it so brusquely, but he bobbed his optic up and down in an affirmation.

“Look, I’m sure You’re having oh so much fun with Blue and Orange – they’re doubtless doing a great job! Wonderful, even! But perhaps it would behoove us to, say, work together on future testing strategies? Not because You need the help, and certainly not because I’m bored or anything, but it might allow for some more interesting results, wouldn’t you say?”

He wasn’t bored. He absolutely wasn’t bored and so desperate for stimulation that he would even seek out entertainment with Her and Her tests. He simply wanted to learn. That was all. There was nothing more to it than that.

He could learn. He wasn’t a moron.

She turned him over in Her claw, examining him with that blinding optic of Hers. He hated to say it, but he almost found himself used to the inspections at this point. She’d even relented a bit on Her painful hold, though he was certain it wasn’t out of any tolerance for him, but more so out of boredom of the same old intimidation tactics. He wasn’t going to complain. If She continued to insist on holding him in conversations, at least She wasn’t making it painful.

When had She learned to do that?

“The last time you attempted to test, it nearly cost Me My entire facility,” She pointed out, Her usual malice upon bringing up that particular past mostly abated in favor of something more neutral. Again, he was certain it was just because She tired of the same tricks. She wasn’t growing soft, and neither was he.

“And what better reason for this arrangement than to teach me how to improve upon my past failures?” he exclaimed, a bit more chipper than might’ve been warranted, but he had to play it up somehow. She squeezed his casing lightly; not enough to hurt, almost seemingly in thought, judging by the tilt of her faceplate.

“That would require you to be teachable, Mor-on,” She stated, tapping against the top of his casing on the last two emphasized syllables with a cable.

“I’m not a moron,” he argued, though the fire in that statement had long since simmered down from something less rageful and into something more exhausted. “Maybe if You actually paid attention to something other than Your own interests, You might notice that.”

Her grip on him tightened into something less comfortable. “And why would I owe you that much consideration?” Her voice raised slightly in impatience.

He couldn’t argue there. She was right; he hadn’t exactly done anything to earn something from Her even remotely resembling trust. But he wasn’t a moron, and he would like to be granted that much.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “I could prove it to You, though. Just a few tests. Maybe even just one? If I can prove that I’ve moved on from my, er, grandiose schemes of control – that I can actually learn and be beneficial to Your testing endeavors, You’ll give me a chance to participate?”

She considered him for a moment, that cable tapping idly against his top handle. He wasn’t sure if She was even aware of the action, so benign it seemed.

“And what would I get out of it?” She asked.

He wriggled lightly in Her grip under the scrutiny, the claw holding him tightening just enough to still his movements. Surprisingly, it spurred him to answer, rather than increase his anxieties.

“Well, some assurances that I won’t cause You any more trouble,” he started. “And if I’m helping You create tests, You can keep me within close reach. Help me stay out of shenanigans, if You know what I mean. And – well – I’ll admit there isn’t much more that I can offer, but if we’re going to be stuck here together, we might as well do something with it, wouldn’t You say?”

He wasn’t bored. He wasn’t lonely. He wanted to learn. That was all.

“And,” he continued when it seemed She wasn’t going to pick up the conversation from there. “Maybe even if I prove to have some good ideas or helpful insights, You could consider calling me by my name for once.”

Her tapping against his casing paused for a moment, only to resume to something that felt distinctly more amused.

“You’re asking for a lot more than you deserve, Moron,” She told him. “And I’ve already been so generous to you.”

He lifted his bottom optic shutter in a facsimile of a smile. “Well, it isn’t like You wouldn’t be able to crush me in an instant if I prove a nuisance, right?”

Alright, perhaps he was a little bored.

The tapping stopped. She lifted him slightly closer to Her optic, as if examining for any falsehoods in his words. “One test,” She agreed. “But if you end up being more trouble than you’re worth, I won’t feel any remorse in watching you burn in the incinerator. Slowly, and painfully.”

If he had a throat, he would have gulped in nervousness. “It’s a deal, then.”

* * *

One test. They agreed upon only one test.

Yet time moved on, and one test turned into three, then ten, then dozens, and at this point She had decided to stop bothering with keeping track.

Well, She still kept track of course, but the numbers weren’t kept at the forefront of Her processors.

The moron, Wheatley, had surprised Her. He wasn’t brilliant by any means, and more often than She’d like to remember he’d nearly created catastrophic failures with his testing ideas. But he did learn, and sometimes even came up with something clever. She had been surprised and might’ve even been perturbed if it weren’t for the fact that he learned under Her tutelage. It wasn’t pride She felt, but something close. Something She didn’t have the words for.

The scientists hadn’t intended for Her to have such a wide array of feelings to put names to, after all.

She wouldn’t say She had come to trust him, not really. But She had grown used to him, and that revelation alone was enough to send Her reeling for weeks. He stayed in Her chamber far more than She would have ever preferred, but it did make working together easier. And She wouldn’t lie that it put Her mind at ease to always have him within grabbing distance. At least under this arrangement She could keep him within Her constant peripheral.

She never attached him to Herself, that would be going too far. But She held him close, even constructed a rail for him to hang from within close proximity of Her chassis so if need be, She could easily reach out and crush him into scrap metal.

She hadn’t needed to, but the option was there.

She did, however, keep a claw around him most days. Initially as a protocol, as She always did whenever he was within Her presence. She’d had no need to hold him too tightly for a long time, instead holding him firm enough only to ensure he remained still. It eased Her anxieties, and he made little complaints. It was practical, necessary.

It didn’t hurt.

Somehow, beyond Her notice, contact had changed into something neutral. It wasn’t entirely associated with the pain that it had been at Her creation. It was simply a part of Her everyday life now, and sometimes, when he didn’t even seem to notice, he would almost lean into Her hold.

It wasn’t comfortable. She could never admit to that. But it didn’t hurt.

Did that lack of pain make it pleasant?

Maybe at one time She would have said no. Maybe even now She would still debate on that answer. But as time wore on, and as their mutual love of testing furthered into more involved plans and detailed constructions, their unspoken contact started to feel like second nature.

She didn’t know _what_ to make of that.

He’d been true to his word; he was proving himself something She could – tentatively – trust. He’d had to work for it, of course. She wasn’t so easily forgiving, and he wasn’t so quick to change. But change did occur, nonetheless. Time seemed to demand such things, after all. And if it made testing easier and more enjoyable for Her, She wasn’t going to be the first to complain.

It was better than loneliness. But did that make it companionable?

Maybe it did.

Maybe.

* * *

“But what if, and hear me out, we added _more_ lasers?”

“If I add another grid of lasers this test won’t be completable.”

“Oh, come on! Ye of little faith! Have trust in Blue and Orange; I’m sure they could manage a little extra excitement. Blue’s been looking sluggish lately; the added sense of danger would do wonders for his morale!”

She angled Her faceplate down at him in something that almost looked like fond amusement. At some point, that look had stopped surprising him, but he wasn’t sure when that point had come and long-since passed.

He nuzzled into Her claw; manipulating is optic shutters into that smile he’d crafted so carefully. He was being cheeky, and he knew that She was well aware, so he might as well not pull his punches, as the saying went.

“Don’t give me that look; you know I’m onto something.”

“ _Something_ isn’t synonymous with _clever_ ,” She intoned, Her cable tapping gently against his casing with each word. “And I only have time for clever today.”

“I’m being clever!” he argued, perhaps a bit more petulantly than he’d intended. “Lasers are always clever!”

“Lasers are flashy and dramatic,” She stated, as if those two things didn’t sum up half of Her personality on their own.

“Yes,” he agreed. “And?”

“And you’re being particularly insufferable today,” She said, swinging him away from Her side as if She were about to make for tossing him away like a broken project. Now She was the one being cheeky. Figures.

“Oy! I’m being my usual amounts of insufferable, thank you very much!” he complained, swinging lightly in Her grip. “ _You’re_ being peevish.”

“Is that so?” She asked, bringing him close to Her again so that he was just before Her optic. She angled Her faceplate downwards, resting the top of Her optic frame against his casing. “Maybe you’ve earned it.”

“Could I _‘unearn’_ it, then?” he asked, lilting his voice and gently tapping his top handle against Her face in what he hoped conveyed innocent naivety. He did cheeky better than She did, after all.

She hummed, stroking his side with a cable in mock contemplation. “I’m sure I can think of something,” She decided. “But you’re going to have to work for it.”

“Lay it on me, then,” he said, a note of challenge in his tone. “I’m sure I’m clever enough for whatever operation You have in store.”

She didn’t argue his surety; She hadn’t taken up that debate in what must have been years now. He couldn’t remember the last time She’d called him Moron, and even though She rarely went as far as to call him by name, that simple change was enough to make him believe there was a home in this once-cursed facility, after all.

When had he grown so comfortable in Her presence?

When had She reciprocated?

The cable stroking against his side came to a stop as She turned him away from Her faceplate back to the test blueprints they had been previously constructing. “For starters, you can find alternatives to the excess of lasers in this test,” She said. “As for the rest, I’ll think of something.”

He sunk comfortably into Her grip, leaning into the claw that had somehow become something so gentle, where before it had only created pain. He would like to take credit for that, but truth be told, the growth hadn’t been only his. It was a growth GLaDOS had also taken on, one entirely of Her own effort.

When had he felt admiration towards Her for witnessing that?

When had She become GLaDOS in his mind?

He couldn’t say, but somehow – without hesitation – he welcomed it.

He shifted in Her grip, nuzzling himself more comfortably into Her touch. She didn’t recoil, nor did She ignore. She pulled him closer, and somehow that rang of safety. Did She feel that safety in contact now too? Did She no longer hurt or feel frightened?

Yes, he believed She did.

She tapped against his casing as they worked, and the world felt whole.


End file.
